“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1

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"Where the legal system fails, violence begins."

Hugo de Groot 1583-1645, Dutch brilliant lawyer and
historian in 'De jure belli ac pacis' (About the law of war and peace),
still the basis of modern international law (1625)

“The Special Rapporteur wishes to recall that, from a human rights perspective, drug dependence should be treated like any other health care condition. Consequently, he would like to reiterate that denial of medical treatment and/or absence of access to medical care in custodial situations may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is therefore prohibited under international human rights law. Equally, subjecting persons to treatment or testing without their consent may constitute a violation of the right to physical integrity. He would also like to stress that, in this regard, States have a positive obligation to ensure the same access to prevention and treatment in places of detention as outside.”— Manfred Nowak

Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

Václav Havel 1936-, writer, fighter for human rights and President of Czechoslovakia and later on the Czech Republic

UN Complaint Against Cruel, Degrading Treatment and Torture

On January 7, 2003 the International Survivors Action Committee filed a formal complaint with the United Nations against Melvin Sembler, Director of the Board of Straight, Inc. for the charge of crimes against humanity. From 1976-1985 it was known as Straight, Inc. and had a reputation for abusing kids as a drug rehabilitation program. In 1985 it changed its name to Straight Foundation, Inc. in order to protect its money and its principals from civil suits. In 1995 it was changed again to Drug Free America Foundation. DFAF is a national and international drug policy think tank and provider of services for drug free work places. See Piercing the Corporate Veil. (For further information about human rights abuses see the shortened history below.)

The reply from the Secretary of the Human Rights Committee to ISAC was a form letter dated February 6, 2003 from Markus Schmidt, Secretary of the Human Rights Committee. The problem was a legal problem in that the United States had never agreed to let its citizens be investigated or arrested by international policemen. Because the USA had not made a declaration under Article 22 and by doing so recognize the Committee’s competence to receive and consider petitions, the matter could not be investigated by the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. The USA had asserted to the international community that it would be abhorrent to permit American citizens to be so interrogated.

Thus the original case of the thousands of victims of child abuse, torture, and sexual abuse at the hands of the Straight Inc. staff did not get the United Nations investigation the victims had hoped for. This was in spite of overwhelming evidence of torture and abusive treatment in the Straight Centers of over 50,000 children and adolescents. Straight was a criminal activity not just limited to criminal child abuse. Its crimes rose to the level of RICO. Even though the Straight victims won victories in US courts and were awarded damages, the money from Straight Inc had vanished into thin air. Thus the thousands Straight victims had not received any restorative justice for their victimization.

By International Law and Treaty obligations signed by the United States of America, the three branches of government - Executive, Legislative, and Judicial are required to uphold the provisions of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Documents (3 documents signed and ratified). The United States also has Federal Statutes in regards to torture, cruel and degrading treatment.

Federal investigations were mandatory when torture and child abuse are involved especially when children are held in facilities across state lines from their original home. But with a complex scheme for money laundering the board officers and staff of the Straight Inc. juvenile rehabilitation centers just moved their money out of the country and out of reach and sight of federal law enforcement investigators. Thus removing from the human rights victims the reparations that had been ordered by US courts. Some of the victims, over 200 of them, were Canadian citizens, denied access the monetary damages in their cases. FBI investigations failed to identify where the money went.

Political power and influence helped shut down FBI investigations into the shell companies and off shore accounts of these non profit organizations. Former US Ambassador to Italy, Melvin Sembler, was a real estate broker by trade as well as the Director of the Straight Inc Board and thus had ability to hide the tremendous profits he and the Straight centers obtained from this abusive teen drug rehabilitation network.

The former doctors involved in running the abusive Straight Inc. teen rehabilitation centers found themselves without income because the United States Congress ordered the lucrative Straight Inc. centers shut down due to Human Rights abuses. These substance abuse treatment doctors then needed to find other employment with their tarnished reputations. They turned to the American Society of Addiction Medicine and the former ASAM President George Douglas Talbott MD. George Douglas Talbott MD had personal and political connections to Melvin Sembler. Melvin Sembler was the President of the Straight Inc. Board of Directors and a real estate broker.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine President, Dr. George Douglas Talbott MD, had clearly been found guilty of human rights abuses against medical professionals entrusted to his care in rehab facilities. The President of the ASAM was found to have targeted medical whistleblowers for brutal psychological violence at the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center which culminated in their suicides. In May, 1999, just after Talbott stepped down as president of ASAM, a jury awarded Dr. Leonard Masters, of Jacksonville Florida, a judgment of $1.3 million against Talbott, his daughter-in-law Morrison, and other Talbott associates for malpractice, fraud, and false imprisonment, based on Masters' stay at Talbott's Atlanta, Georgia, treatment facility in 1994. Testifying against Talbott at the Masters' trial was Anne Geller who was the past president of the ASAM before Talbott. The level to which Talbott was able to intimidate witnesses was evident at the Masters' trial. For their own protection, witnesses were not asked by the Judge to be identified in the court record by name and the court record was afterward sealed to prevent leaks to the press and public. Talbott faced no professional repercussions for being found guilty of human rights abuses and continued even after the verdict to be the President of the ASAM. No changes in treatment protocols were made in order to prevent further human rights abuses, instead discussion revolved around how to legally and legislatively protect the ASAM organization from another law suit in the future. Talbott even today presents himself and ASAM as the premier medical advocate for treatment of "impaired" licensed medical professionals.

This system of abusive coercion of licensed medical professionals is the reason why there is not a loud outcry against this abusive treatment center network that is still operating today. Licensed medical professionals are obligated by their HIPPOCRATIC OATH to protect their patient safety and under international standards of proper conduct Mandated Reporters of Torture and Abuse. Licensed medical professionals are Defenders of Human Rights and the watchdog for the vulnerable patients in need of care.

For further information about Torture and Defenders of Human Rights see these Canary Notes Newsletters.

In December 1974 the US Senate released a report that accused The Seed, a juvenile drug rehabilitation program, of using Communist North Korean brainwashing techniques on American teenagers. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, under direction from the US Senate, notified The Seed that it would have to get signed consent forms from clients and their parents acknowledging that Seed clients were participating in human experimentation (e.g. brainwashing). Under the weight of allegations of abuse and the Senate report The Seed closed its expansion programs. So Mel Sembler hired some Seed graduates and formed his own Seed which he called Straight. '

The latest update: This bill was sent to the Senate on June 26, 2008 but the problem of this kind of human rights abuses continues and new programs are springing up and the persons financially benefiting are becoming more adept at hiding their abuses. Have we learned anything from history. Do we want to continue to allow the doctors involved in these abuses to place themselves in positions of power in order to prevent investigation of their actions?

For years Melvin Sembler and his wife Betty operated one of the most destructive and world’s largest chain of juvenile rehabilitation programs, Straight, Inc. In 1985 the Semblers, fearing civil suits by the victims of the abuse and fearing possible criminal prosecution, changed the mission of Straight, Inc. from "treatment" to "education" and its name from "Straight, Inc." to "Straight Foundation, Inc." In 1995, two years after Straight had to be closed, Betty changed the name of the educational foundation again to the Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF). So today Straight has morphed into an organization called Drug Free America Foundation, which specializes in helping small businesses set up Drug Free Workplaces, and in promoting national and international drug policy. See the Sembler Report compiled by the International Survivors Action Committee.

Wes Fager who had for years documents the abuses of Straight Inc. had learned about the abusive teen program when he enrolled his own son in a Springfield, VA chapter of Straight on the advice of a high school guidance counselor. Separated and not permitted to communicate with his own son Wes Fager didn’t see his son again until three months later after he’d escaped. As a result of the abuse he suffered his son developed severe mental illness. Wes Fager provided a place to post the accumulating evidence of rampant child abuse on a clearinghouse website. He’s collected stories of suicides and attempted suicides, rapes, forced abortions, molestations, physical abuse, lawsuits, court testimonies and extensive documentation of profound psychological abuse at Straight chapters all over the country.

Straight sought white children almost exclusively especially those from middle class and upper class families with good medical insurance that covered substance abuse treatment. Straight denied citizens their civil rights and human dignities. Kids were deprived of food and sleep, beaten without cause, made to soil their pants, spat on, denied private access for a bowel movement.

As many as 50,000 kids were in the Straight program, Straight, Inc. is the biggest violator of human rights and civil liberties that this country has ever seen. There are accounts of food and sleep deprivation, making kids soil their pants, beatings, spitting in kids faces, and marathon sessions where teenagers would be yelled at by many other kids for long periods of time. Children were forbidden from reading any material including religious books. Conditions were so deplorable that kids had to be watched 24/7, even as they wiped themselves on the toilet (reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps where Jews were made to defecate publicly like cats and dogs) to make sure they did not commit suicide. Under such deplorable and humiliating conditions many kids resorted to carving on their bodies with a fingernail, piece of broken chair, or whatever else they could find just as a caged animal gnarls at an open sore.

Commenting specifically about Straight, Inc. after a visit to Straight-Springfield, Professor Barry L. Beyerstein in "Thought Reform Tactics: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions" wrote this:

". . . All such practices begin with a concerted assault upon the individual's personal identity, i.e., an attempt to destroy his or her sense of self and its relation to the pre-existing social matrix. By systematically undermining their sense of individual autonomy, target persons can be driven to a state of child-like vulnerability to outside influences, dramatic alterations in beliefs, and in extreme cases, psychotic-like behavior and suicidal tendencies."

Straight used cajole and intimidation to force teenagers to talk about their deepest darkest secret (frequently sexual) and then often Straight further humiliated the child by sharing the forced confessions with the larger Group of kids. In violation of US Civil Rights laws, Straight accepted federal money which had been collected from tax money from blacks and whites and used that money to treat almost exclusively white children. This was perhaps due to the perception that white families were in a better economic position to pay Straight's high fees. Straight watched kids to make sure they did not kill themselves while in they were in the program but Straight had no plan to keep these kids (suffering from Straight-induced PTSD, depression, and humiliation about their sex lives) from killing themselves once they left. Indeed there have been over 40 post Straight suicides (including second-generation Straights).

"I have also interviewed children who made suicide attempts following their running from the Seed. Overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and despair were in evidence."

Jeffery J. Elenewski, Ph.D., clinical psychologist,

The Children's Psychiatric Center, Dade County, Florida commenting on students he has met who had fled The Seed--Straight's predecessor.

Straight is about stripping a child down of all self respect and then trying to build him back up in a desirable image hoping that you won't drive him over the edge along the way. Animal trainers and contemporary psychologist call this behavior modification. Cult awareness specialists and military intelligence officers call it Chinese thought reform. The Communist Chinese themselves call it re-education; Straight calls it re-acculturation. But most people call it just plain oldbrainwashing. In his seminal book on brainwashing Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton, Jr. warns of the dangers of driving a person to suicide by severely depriving and depressing him. Ray Bradbury, a straight victim tried to use his First Amendment right to speak out against him, Melvin Sembler got a judge to shut Bradbury up without even meeting him. Sembler's Straight program was in violation of the civil rights and human rights of American citizens, prohibitions against false imprisonment, and violation of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights act of 1964 by receiving federal money to operate Straight while offering Straight's services almost exclusively to whites. Profit making was the main goal and Sembler was behind a plan to make every kid in America pay to have their urine checked for drugs in order to get a driver's license--a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment guaranteeing against unreasonable searches and seizures...without probable cause.

There was high level political power behind Melvin Sembler and the Straight Inc. program. While in the Oval Office as President, the former CIA director George H. W. Bush made a TV commercial for Strambler and Joseph Zappala (another Straight Inc. board member) to ambassadors to Australia and Spain, respectively. His son President George W. Bush appointed Sembler to ambassador to Italy. His son Governor Jeb Bush is on the Advisory Board for Straight, under its current name, Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) along with his wife Columba and his Lt. Governor Toni Jennings. Drug Free America Foundation is funded by the US government. Former Drug Czar Robert DuPont of Bensinger & DuPont is another Straight board member.

"Staff members directed me to physically batter and verbally assault other clients. They gave me this direction when I was a client and when I was a Staff Trainee. I carried them out. So did hundreds if not tens of thousands of other kids. . . As hard as it has been to live with the reality of being clinically abused for nearly two years, it cannot compare with the complete nightmare of living with the fact that I abused other people repeatedly in the name of a thought control cult. It cannot compare with the nightmare of knowing that some of the people I abused have ended up in jail, or dead, and that I contributed to the destruction of their lives."

James, a former student at Straight-Atlanta turned staff member.

(Excerpted from the writings of Wesley Fager, a dedicated activist against the Straight Inc abuses)

But in spite of the rising tide of evidence of human rights abuses, Straight’s founders, Mel and Betty Sembler, have enormous influence over U.S. drug policy. They and their colleagues do still serve on the boards of most every major domestic anti-drug program. They have their official biographies posted here andhere -- despite the horrors that have surfaced about the program’s history. As the U.S. struggles with a growing illegal drug problem, there is more incarceration for minor drug offenses the trend toward “boot camp” rehab programs and the potential for this kind of abuse.

Straight faced the victims of its abuse in the courts and slowly victims/survivors are winning awards. http://www.rickross.com/groups/straightinc.html A college student won $ 721,00 in 1990 and another won $200,000 in 1983. This prompted Straight to get more coercive with doctors to prevent them from testifying as expert witnesses against the Straight Inc. facilities. As Straight chapters shut down all over the country new facilities under different names but the same philosophy sprang ups such as “KIDS,” “Growing Together,” and “SAFE”.

The Straight branch in Atlanta closed in 1993 but new facilities under different names sprung up immediately elsewhere. A Straight, Inc. spin-off called “Kids of North Jersey” settled a $4.5 million abuse claim in 2000. Straight, Inc. changed its name in 1996 to the Drug Free America Foundation, which thrives today under federal subsidies, including $400,000 in the year 2000 and $320,000 from the Small Business Administration.

"Most men feel themselves entitled by the weakness or
misfortune of others to inflict further outrages upon them without fear
or reprisal; they take a barbarous pleasure in adding to their
afflictions, in making them feel their superiority, in treating them
cruelly, in ridiculing them."

D'Holbach 1723-1789, German-born French man of leisure,
known as a conversationalist, host, scholar, secular moralist, and
philosopher celebrated for his freely spoken views on atheism,
determinism, and materialism and for his contributions to Diderot's
Encyclopédie, in 'Universal Morality' (1776)

AARC is a "treatment" program in Canada that uses the Straight, Inc., Synanon, SEED model. It is abusive. CBC News was good enough to expose this abuse and air it. This is the 12 step program in Canada that abuses minors and leaves them with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the abuse they suffered behind those walls. Surprisingly the abusive substance abuse treatment center is modeled on the Straight Inc. program from Bergin County New Jersey "KIDS". That center was shut down by US authorities due to abusive practices which constituted human rights violations.

CIA Mind Control

Ruth Fox, ASAM and Mind Control

ASAM, Dr. Ruth Fox ‘s legacy is this collusion with private contracts with governmental agencies and private corporations for non NIH research. Dr. Ruth Fox’s Project MK-ULTRA a CIA mind control program was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the U.S. Congress, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission. George Herbert Walker Bush was CIA Director from January 30, 1976 – January 20, 1977. Over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, and native Americans. Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." This was sanctioned governmental human rights abuses done by these LSD researchers and sometimes resulted in permanent disability and even death. The CIA itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense and monitoring was not done qualified scientific observers.

Medical doctors are necessary to manipulate public policy and to further the financial interests of the criminal enterprise of Straight and its progeny, which use vulnerable patients for profits while ignoring patient's real needs and fostering a system of abusive human rights violations. So high level medical doctors were used to provide legitimacy such as former White House drug czars Robert DuPont, MD (a former paid Straight consultant) and Donald Ian MacDonald, MD (Straight's former national medical research director) who are members of the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse (a DFAF subsidiary). Richard Schwartz, MD, former medical research director for Straight - Springfield is another forum member.

The predecessor of Straight Inc. the Seed opened for business in June 1970 in Florida. The Seed was a substance abuse treatment center for adolescents and children. So in 1970 with a start up grant for $1 million dollars from the federal government's NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse )--a subsidiary of the sprawling NIMH (National Institue of Mental Health) the Seed program was established. Melvin Sembler's son was enrolled in Seed and Melvin Sembler, (personal friend to George H. W. Bush), became President of the Board of Straight Inc. Director of NIDA, psychiatrist Robert L. DuPont, Jr. had approved the grant.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine was "founded" by Dr. Ruth Fox, the architect of the Straight Inc. rehabilitation centers and the guru of mind control techniques using abusive coercive control and experimental LSD drug therapy. The CIA had experimented with LSD on prisoners at the NIH's lock-up hospital in Lexington, Kentucky where NIH had set up its own experimental program called MATRIX.

Ruth Fox was the founder of ASAM — The American Society for Addiction Medicine — that exists to promote A.A. and the 12-Step treatment of alcoholism, this is done by pretending to give doctors helpful advice about what works to treat or cure alcoholism. Dr. Ruth Fox, Medical Director of the National Council on Alcoholism in the United States, had used LSD in alcoholic rehabilitation. She endorsed the use of the drug LSD for therapeutic use. She claimed that LSD made the experimental subjects have a new feeling of compassion and tenderness for others. Dr. Ruth Fox also felt that LSD was very helpful in changing alcoholics' thinking and behavior: “LSD does seem to make the patient more willing to undertake the total program necessary for his recovery. After LSD most of the patients who formerly refused to cooperate were willing to take disulfiram, attend group therapy and to affiliate with A.A.” Ruth Fox,Alcoholism, Behavioral Research, Therapeutic Approaches, 1967, page 775, quoted in Slaying the Dragon, William L. White, page 229.

And Dr. Ruth Fox was such a unethical research scientist that she gave her patients disulfiram and then alcohol, to deliberately make them very sick, in an attempt to build up an aversion to alcohol. Even after she discovered that the aversion therapy didn't work, and even after one patient nearly died from an almost fatal reaction to a single ounce of alcohol, she still insisted on giving each patient at least one session of being sick from the disulfiram/alcohol combination, before she released them from the hospital. (See: Disulfiram (Antabuse) as an Adjunct in the Treatment of Alcoholism, Dr. Ruth Fox, in Alcoholism: Behavioral Research, Therapeutic Approaches, edited by Ruth Fox, M.D., foreword by 'Mrs.' Marty Mann, Springer Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1967.)

The ASAM still collects financial donations to the Ruth Fox Endowment Fund and sends the money overseas where the prying eyes of the FBI can't follow it. The money of the Ruth Rox Endowment fund is used to pay for continuing education (courses about ASAM philosophy and to fund scholarships for FASAM interns and doctors).

These techniques of using drugs to force compliance out of patients became the hallmark of the new AA, and American Society of Addiction Medicine programs. The American Society of Addiction Medicine even wrote their own book based in part on Ruth Fox's pioneering treatment of alcoholics with LSD. No mention is made of the patients who became permanently psychotic or committed suicide under her LSD treatment. No accounting for violations of civil rights, privacy or human rights.

This historical abuse of human subjects by substance abuse treatment doctors was well documented in the Congressional Church Committee report and the Rockefeller Commission. (Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, April 26 (legislative day, April 14), 1976.) The published evidence indicated that Project MKULTRA involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methods, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function on US and Canadian citizens. Over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." Dr. Ruth Fox, founder of the ASAM, utilized a variety of drugs including LSD on alcoholics, homeless persons, enlisted military personnel and even on unsuspecting public citizens, as part of CIA research into mind control. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject's knowledge or informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after World War II. The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that "Prior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects". Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities which, among other things, prohibited "experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission. Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.

The coercive violence of the Straight program lived on in a series of other rehabilitation centers long after the United States Congress had ordered the organization shut down for human rights abuses. The Federation of State Physicians Health Programs came from the state chapters of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. So the Washington Physicians Health Program is the former Washington State Chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Surprising to most doctors is that the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs has a State Physicians Health Program in almost every state. This State Physician Health Program is a non governmental organization with tax exempt status and incorporated to limit their Board of Directors from liability. The State Physician Health Program is now the predominant investigator of any medical professional who might be "impaired" or even a "disruptive doctor". Under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act there does not even need to be valid legal evidence to remove a doctors license. Thus doctors, nurses, pharmacists, chiropractors, dentists, and even veterinarians are now controlled by this organization which is the grandchild of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. It's practices are related closely to those of the leaders of the Straight Inc and Seed rehabilitation centers. The same web of patient abuse behind closed doors has now gained official status as a governing agency watchdog with coercive control over medical professional's licenses through "monitoring" and investigation.

The esteemed founder of mind control experiments was strongly condemned by the US Congress but the financial association of her and her colleagues with private funding from undisclosed sources continued unabated. The ASAM doctors who had lost their medical licenses were more than eager to be reinstated as doctors in order to perform research in newly established substance abuse residential treatment centers and to use drugs on captive patients without proper informed consent. Who could complain, certainly not the “addicted” patients. So the pharmaceutical companies found “human subjects” who were controllable and who could be forced in locked facilities to take these experimental drugs.

In return for cooperating with the pharmaceutical industries corporate goals there would be political influence exerted to soften certain legislative language to facilitate the ASAM doctors to regain their medical licenses permanently and to erase their soiled records of addictive behaviors and criminal activity. The ASAM strategically analyzed how to circumvent the medical quality control system that was preventing them from expunging the addiction behavior from their records. A Federation of State Physicians Health Program’s committee was established for monitoring the addicted ASAM members who wanted their medical licenses back.

A few states – notably Texas, Florida and Georgia were particularly favorable to former addicts having the court system erase previous criminal infractions.

For example in Atlanta, Georgia, Judge Marsh actually co-owed the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center with the former ASAM President George Douglas Talbott. Judge Marsh court ordered “impaired” persons to be incarcerated in the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center for “treatment” and also made judgment on sealing records of past addictive behaviors of those deemed “cured” by Dr. George Douglas Talbott. Dr. George Douglas Talbott was known for severe abusive behavior which led to the suicide deaths of many medical professionals under his “monitoring” program. While ASAM President of the Board, he was successfully sued by Dr. Leon Masters for false imprisonment and abusive treatment.

The ASAM had established a system of substance abuse “monitoring” through the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs which they attempted to put in place in every state in the USA. Through contracts with the state departments of health, they established themselves as the only competitor for state funding through medical licensing fees. With generous outside funding from non disclosed sources, the ASAM doctors were able to effectively underbid others for these substance abuse treatment monitoring functions. Deliberately targeting allied professionals such as non-medically trained assistants, office managers, and paraprofessional staff to “snitch on doctors”, the ASAM found target doctors to force into their abusive monitoring system.

In addition the ASAM actively courted law enforcement, promising them to take the “impaired physician” off their hands and quietly spirit them away where they couldn’t cause any commotion or public spectacle. This even included providing direct ASAM training to the King County Sheriff’s Department in Seattle WA so that officers would handle all cases involving licensed medical professionals by turning them over to the ASAM doctors of the Washington Physicians Health Program. This allowed a seamless flow of persons through assertion of color of law authority of the ASAM doctors over any licensed medical professional. The first phone call of the police would be to the nongovernmental organization the Washington Physicians Health Program and the ASAM doctors would immediately respond to control the targeted doctor. The Washington Physicians Health Program contract with the Washington Department of Health was used to promote color of law authority to the ASAM doctors. The ASAM knew how to manipulate the doctor with coercive force and threats against their medical license. Law enforcement would not log complaints by doctors against the ASAM/Washington Physicians Health Program because the WPHP was a subcontractor of the Washington Department of Health. Law enforcement officers would take as absolute truth any diagnosis presented by the WPHP about any “impaired” doctor and would cooperate fully with the ASAM doctors to force the recalcitrant doctor to obey them. There would be no investigation into the violations of civil or even human rights.

The ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs politically worked to change legislative law in each state to be favorable for them to control the investigation into any quality control issues related to doctors or other licensed medical professionals. Presenting themselves as experts on the treatment of addictions, the ASAM doctors did educational programs to train others to view “problem” doctors through the lens of ASAM principles built around the Dr. Ruth Fox tradition of abusive and coercive control.

The Physicians Health Program insists that state medical boards refuse to accept already well documented credentials and force applicants to send credentialing to a independent incorporated centralized agency the ASAM controlled. This essentially prevents whistleblowers from seeking a medical license in any state in the USA and shuts down a doctor’s ability to even go overseas with a clean record and obtain a medical license. The ASAM’s and FPHP control over medical licensing is absolute and is not open to law enforcement scrutiny and also not under the control of any governmental body. The state board of medicine does not control what goes on behind those closed doors. The US Congress cannot pierce the covert halls of this power and even the FBI is stopped at the door by the protestations of HIPPA and confidentiality which require a high burden of proof in order to obtain a subpoena. The ASAM addicted doctors have created a system they control and in which they can hide whatever criminal activity they want.

If law enforcement wants to prevent medical fraud then we must dismantle this FSPHP system of power and control, and put power back in the hands of elected officials and real medical professionals with clean records and no past history of addictive behavior.

The techniques learned by Dr. Ruth Fox in mind control experiments using alcoholics as clinical subjects were easily adapted to silencing whistleblowers. These principles became the basis for the “Big Book” or the manual used by the ASAM to train all their followers. Inherent to this ASAM program designed for alcoholics were the following principles:

We were powerless

A power greater than ourselves will restore us to sanity

We were wrong

Our problems are the result of defects of character

We admit/confess our sins to persons we had harmed

This kind of dogma is absolutely false for anyone who is an innocent crime victim or victim of trauma. For persons suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder one of the most important healing concepts is the concept of empowerment and personal control. Forcing whistleblowers, victims of sexual assault or combat trauma to admit they were morally wrong and suffer from a defect of character is absolutely contrary to what would be right for their personal healing. Holding a trauma victim in a locked facility and forcing confessions of “sins” in order to be released is essentially psychological coercion and torture. But this is exactly what the Physicians Health Programs, ASAM, and other associated programs do to all crime victims, combat veterans, whistleblowers, and victims of bullying in the workplace. Forcing a whistleblower to admit they are powerless and must obey a power greater than themselves is a way of making the whistleblower be silent and to bend to the political and social power of the criminal enterprise.

One has only to look at the past history of abuse of this substance abuse treatment method to understand how brutally abusive it is (SEED, Straight Inc., Talbott Marsh Recovery Center) There have been four US Congressional investigations into these abusive programs but they still multiply and thrive in spite of the exposure of their abusive methods. Now this abusive program has taken hold of the quality control system within the medical community and entrenched themselves as the “monitors” of proper behavior. The message is clear to all licensed medical professionals:

Admit you are powerless in front of the power of the ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs and you will never “snitch” on any ASAM member.

Admit that the power of the ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs will rule your life as a professional doctor.

Admit you are wrong and have a defective character and need a “recovered” ASAM addict to tell you how to run your life and what you are allowed to do.

Admit you have “sins” you are embarrassed about and which can be used by the ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs for blackmail and extortion.

Dr. George Douglas Talbott MD is a former president of ASAM, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which is yet another Alcoholics Anonymous front organization. ASAM exists to promote A.A. and 12-Step treatment to doctors, and to fool doctors into thinking that 12-Step treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous actually work to cure alcoholics.

Right now in Atlanta Georgia at the Talbott Recovery Center Dr. George Douglas Talbott, an admitted "recovered" alcoholic is running a rehab clinic that is specifically aimed at other doctors and medical professionals who have been forced to go through his treatment program by a state review board or professional society. But history has proven that his program makes doctors and nurses commit suicide.

"At least 20 doctors, nurses and other health professionals who have gone through the Ridgeview Institute's nationally acclaimed treatment program over the past 12 years have killed themselves since leaving the hospital."— Atlanta Journal Constitution

In May, 1999, just after Talbott stepped down as president of ASAM, a jury awarded Dr. Leonard Masters, of Jacksonville Florida, a judgment of $1.3 million against Talbott, his daughter-in-law Morrison, and other Talbott associates for malpractice, fraud, and false imprisonment, based on Masters' stay at Talbott's Atlanta, Georgia, treatment facility in 1994.

The Federation of State Physicians Health Programs hold a contract with the Medical Associations in each state to provide these services and the cost is paid from both the State Department of Health and the Federal taxpayer as well as heavily financially influenced by malpractice insurance companies and large medical corporations. Medical Professionals when they apply for their licenses are unwittingly signing a contract for this non governmental agency the State Physicians Health Program to "monitor" them. The State Physicians Health Program is not itself monitored by anyone for what they do to the licensed professionals behind closed doors. Suicides are still common. The ASAM paid to settle a claim in Atlanta involving multiple suicides of licensed professionals at the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center. Marsh stands for Judge Marsh who was a part owner and financially benefited by forcing people to go to treatment there.

The State Physicians Health Program, a non governmental entity over which the State Department of Health has little supervisory oversight and control has been given almost police like powers to take away the license of any medical professional they choose to target and in addition have been granted by most of the State Legislatures quasi-governmental immunity from being sued for damages from injured persons. Thus the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs have prevented the bereaved families of the medical professionals who committed suicide from ever receiving justice.

You can identify the members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine by the letters FASAM behind their name. The ASAM website still encourages donations to the Ruth Fox Endowment Fund in honor of their "Founder". But one can wonder whether the ASAM is an organization that truly is meant to serve the patients needing addiction treatment. Their stated goal of increasing access to addiction treatment can be translated to increasing income of their FASAM members. ASAM supports research that furthers FASAM financial goals and is geared to increase use of their misguided principles in the ASAM BIG BOOK more widely. Financial incentives to keep patients captive in abusive addiction treatment centers while making maximum profit is not good public health policy, nor is it quality patient care which should be based on values inherent in the HIPPOCRATIC OATH. There is no mention of ethical values of patient care in the ASAM mission statement, instead their mission statement makes it clear that the goal is to further the use of their ASAM brand of Addiction treatment.

Remember that a central element to torture is the enforced loss of control and autonomy of the person and that mind control techniques use denying basic needs to a person in order to force submission to power. This submission to power is what the corrupt criminal enterprise’s protection apparatus is all about. The Federation of Physicians Health Programs is a corrupt criminal enterprise that is used to hide medical fraud, patient abuse and neglect, human rights violations, drug diversion and money laundering within the medical community.

"There is some benevolence, however small, infused into our
bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the
dove kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and the
serpent."

What is a cult?

Hallmarks of a cult are, to name a few: a devotion to secrecy as regards beliefs and membership; a belief system that is so esoteric as to be incomprehensible or so derivative as to be patently false; financial requirements that can become onerous; practices or requirements that isolate members from loved ones or bar contact with anyone outside the religion; an obsession with a particular leader who may be charismatic and authoritarian; and of course any systematic physical or sexual abuse. The end result is an emotional and spiritual dependency that is harmful to a person's well-being. Charles Manson's community in Guyana was called a cult. The followers of Jim Jones committed mass suicide at their community in Guyana in 1978. It can be argued that the Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, who perished in an FBI siege in Waco in 1993 were considered a cult. So this is the list of the eight criteria cult researcher Dr. Robert J. Lifton believed were involved in thought reform.

Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.

Mystical Manipulation.There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes.

Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.

Confession.Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders.

Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.

Loading the Language.The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clich's, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.

Doctrine over person.Member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.

Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. (Lifton, 19 89)

Founded in 1979, the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is a global network of people concerned about psychological manipulation and abuse in cultic groups, alternative movements, and other environments.

ICSA's mission is to apply research and professional perspectives to the problems encountered by family members and former group members adversely affected by a cultic involvement and to forewarn those who might become involved in potentially harmful group situations.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the
universal Declaration of Human Rights, without distinction of any kind,
such as race, creed, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

—Principle 1, ICPD Programme of Action

Creating a New Board Speciality in order to control Federal Grant Funds and other Public Financing

American Society of Addiction Medicine certification FASAM is not equivalent to medical board certification. On their website the ASAM admits that the ASAM " examination is not a Board examination. ASAM is not a member of the Board of American Board of Medical Specialties, and ASAM Certification does not confer board Certification. " http://www.asam.org/ExamHistory.html

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. The ASAM conveniently refuses to acknowledge the DSM IV R criteria for various addictive disorders and instead has their own criteria which was concocted by their own doctors with histories of addiction. Dr. George Douglas Talbott was one of the initial writers of the ASAM manual on addiction. This book is used by ASAM doctors as the bible to diagnosis people with "addiction". So they created their own criteria and based that on symptoms which in the real DSM IV R are attributed to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Acute and Complex). The PHP never gives anyone just a diagnosis of PTSD because that would not allow them to legally prevent their whistleblowing testimony to be heard in a court of law. It is important to recognize the difference between PTSD which is a psychiatric injury as opposed to what is a mental disease. This is a legal as well as a medical concept.

Based on this newly concocted diagnostic manual dreamed up by the members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the ASAM then started their own credentialing program and called the graduates who learned their new diagnostic approach Fellows and gave them the initials FASAM behind their names. The ASAM is now trying to grandfather in their FASAM members as being boarded experts in behavioral medicine without going through the strenuous residential internships currently required to call a doctor a boarded expert. Should allegations of domestic violence and human rights violations be permanently erased from a doctor's record so that he can move into a position of national political influence and power?

There are specific professional organizations which provide Board Specialty training in medicine and psychology. These organizations have clear stringent guidelines as to who is given the honor and professional status as a boarded expert. Credentialing in the Boarded specialties as a MD is a challenging process that weeds out those without adequate clinical or academic skills.

Even in the field of psychology which is not the practice of medicine, there are still strict guidelines for board certification. The American Board of Professional Psychology was incorporated in 1947 with the support of the American Psychological Association. The ABPP is a unitary governing body of separately incorporated specialty examining boards which assures the establishment, implementation, and maintenance of specialty standards and examinations by its member boards. Through its Central Office, a wide range of administrative support services are provided to ABPP Boards, Board Certified Specialists, and the public.A Specialty is a defined area in the practice of psychology that connotes special competency acquired through an organized sequence of formal education, training, and experience. In order to qualify as a specialty affiliated with the ABPP, a specialty must be represented by an examining board which is stable, national in scope, and reflects the current development of the specialty. A specialty board is accepted for affiliation following an intensive self-study and a favorable review by the ABPP affirming that the standards for affiliation have been met. These standards include a thorough description of the area of practice and the pattern of competencies required therein as well as requirements for education, training, experience, research bases of the specialty, practice guidelines, and a demonstrated capacity to examine candidates for the specialty on a national level.

This is not true of the new board "speciality" criteria of the newly created Association for Behavioral Healthand Wellness (ABHW) - which was previously the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association. The goal of the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association was to make money on substance abuse treatment and mental health services. Instead their CEO and Chairman of the ABHW Board, Pamela Greenberg, is also Senior Vice President in the Stephens Inc. company in Dallas TX which supplies financial services for health insurance companies. The goal of this alliance is to make money for the financial investors (Stephens Group LLC). Those making management decisions are not trained in medicine or psychology, they are trained in financial assessment, risk management, cost benefit insurance statistical analysis, economics, public policy, survey research and other related fields. They are not medical doctors or psychologists.

It must be remembered that part of the funding for the State Physicians Health Programs is provided from medical malpractice insurance companies. The State Physicians Health Program is not designed to help targeted doctors recover and go back to practice, nor are they designed to truly protect the vulnerable patients from abuse, neglect and medical fraud. The State Physicians Health Program is designed to make their Directors money and to protect large hospital and medical corporations from medical malpractice suits. The State Physicians Health Program will readily sacrifice a medical doctor's career for corporate profits.

ASAM states in their mission statement that their goal is to establish addiction medicine as a specialty recognized by professional organizations, governments, physicians, purchasers and consumers of health care services, and the general public. The American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association (AMBHA) and the American Society of Addiction Medicine(ASAM) are together promoting this new medical boarding and will be grandfathering those who already have the FASAM credentials in without the need for the normal hospital residency. These newly boarded "experts" in behavioral medicine would then be able to compete for Federal Funding on an equal basis to the already existing Medical Doctor Board and Psychologist certifications in Psychiatry and Psychology but these new graduates would be trained in the Dr. George Talbott and Ruth Fox traditions. One can only imagine what Dr. George Douglas Talbott ("recovered" alcoholic) and these other FASAM doctors would then do politically and financially with this new credentialing based on past history of medical fraud, patient abuse and human rights violations.

Drug Free America Foundation

Advisory Board

Alfred Hoffman, Jr.

Job Title:

President, Hoffman Partners LLC

Location:

Fort Myers, FL

Ambassador Melvyn Levitsky

Job Title:

Professor University of Michigan

Location:

Ann Arbor, MI

Andrew P. Thomas, Esq.

Job Title:

County Attorney

Location:

Maricopa County, AZ

Christy McCampbell

Job Title:

Deputy Assistant US Department of State, INL

Location:

Washington, DC

Clayton M. Wilcox, Ph.D.

Job Title:

Former Superintendent Pinellas County Schools

Location:

Largo, FL

Columba Bush

Job Title:

Former First Lady State of Florida

Location:

Tallahassee, FL

Daniel Lungren, Esq.

Job Title:

Former Attorney General

Location:

Sacramento, CA

Darryl Ervin Rouson, Esq.

Job Title:

State Representative and Former President NAACP

Location:

St. Petersburg, FL

H. Lee Moffitt, Esq.

Job Title:

Former Speaker Florida House of Representatives

Location:

Tallahassee, FL

Honorable Brad Owen

Job Title:

Lt. Governor State of Washington

Location:

Olympia, WA

Honorable Jeb Bush

Job Title:

Former Governor State of Florida

Location:

Tallahassee, FL

Honorable Richard Baker

Job Title:

Mayor

Location:

City of St. Petersburg, FL

James Gills, M.D.

Job Title:

St. Luke’s Cataract and Laser Institute

Location:

Tarpon Springs, FL

Karen P. Tandy

Job Title:

Former Administrator Drug Enforcement Administration

Location:

Washington, DC

Malcolm Beyer, Jr.

Job Title:

Community Anti-Drug Advocate

Location:

Jupiter, FL

Mary Evertz

Job Title:

Community Volunteer Retired Journalist

Location:

St. Petersburg, FL

Robert Dupont, M.D.

Job Title:

Founding Director National Institute on Drug Abuse

Location:

Rockville, MD

Ronald Weaver, Esq.

Job Title:

Community Anti-Drug Advocate

Location:

Tampa, FL

Steven Raymund

Job Title:

Chairman of the Board Tech Data Corporation

Location:

Clearwater, FL

Susan Latvala

Job Title:

Pinellas County Commissioner

Location:

Clearwater, FL

Martin Fiorentino, Jr., Esq.

Job Title:

Fiorentino & Associates

Location:

Jacksonville, FL

Venice Maki

Job Title:

Goodwill Ambassador

National Recording Artist

Board Of Directors

Alejandro Vassilaqui

Job Title:

Director

Betty S. Sembler

Job Title:

Chair

D. Jay Snyder, Esq.

Job Title:

Legal Counsel/Vice Chair

James D. Sewell, Ph.D

Job Title:

Director

James W. Holton, Esq.

Job Title:

Director

John E. Stross

Job Title:

Director

Joseph Garcia, Esq.

Job Title:

Secretary

Kevin P. Kauffman

Job Title:

Director

Stuart Lasher

Job Title:

Treasurer

Walter P. Loebenberg

Job Title:

President/Vice Chair

William S. Jacobs, Jr., M.D.

Job Title:

Director

Special Advisors

David A. Gross, M.D., FAPA

David G. Evans, Esq.

Eric Voth, M.D., FACP

Ernest Aeschbach, M.D.

Stephanie Haynes

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

"Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself." Confucius

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who
at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore
Roosevelt- Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic",
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

Medical Whistleblower Commitment to Non-Violence

Medical Whistleblower has a commitment to improving the protection of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as defined in, among others, the following regional and international legal instruments:

• UN legal instruments pertaining to human rights, including: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the international covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights; the conventions providing for monitoring mechanisms (torture, racial discrimination, discrimination against women, the rights of the child, rights of migrant workers and their families); and the conventions and standards of the International Labor Organization;

• Special procedures and non-treaty mechanisms of the United Nations;

• The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders;

• The UN resolution establishing the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights defenders;

• The United Nations guidelines on human rights defenders;

In addition, Medical Whistleblower upholds the principle of a code of ethical and moral conduct that all means used by Medical Whistleblower will not include violence - We exclude the use of violence to advance political aims. We work with and in collaboration with existing governmental structures and systems but put pressure on governments in a non-violent manner to achieve human rights protections and goals.

"The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience."

“When we call anything a person’s right, we mean that he has a
valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the
force of law, or by that of education and opinion”

John Stuart Mill

"The adversarial system of justice is by nature unfair and unjust. It favours the strongover the weak. It accentuates social and cultural differences, favouring the rich whoare able to engage and pay for the services of one or more layers."

Justice MinisterMadame Guigou, 1999

“Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.”
―Martin Luther

Protect Medical Whistleblowers

“The most powerful individual in the state will be cautious of committing any flagrant invasion of another’s right, when he knows that the fact of his oppression must be examined and decided by twelve indifferent men.”

Registration Survey

“I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something
that I can do.”
― Edward Everett Hale

Make Torture of US Citizens on US Soil illegal

IF YOU NEED HELP

Vietnam
Veterans of America, Crisis Phone Number. Special
Notice: If you are a veteran in emotional crisis and need help RIGHT NOW, call
this toll-free number 1-800-273-8255 available 24/7, and tell them you are a
veteran. All calls are confidential. http://www.vva.org/.

Veterans’
Crisis Intervention Hotline: 1-888-899-9377.
A Crisis Intervention Hotline has been established by the VA Heartland Network
to assist veterans who may be dealing with a mental health crisis or difficult
issue in their lives. The hotline will also aid family members or friends of
veterans who need help in assisting a veteran in crisis.

Safe Harborincludes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs.